Getting Honey Suite with The Lifers

Liv and Anita Cazzola lead Guelph’s art-folk/rock collective The Lifers. So, what’s in a name? Well, for starters, the two have a partnership that seems tightly fastened together for life with needle, thread, some welding, a smattering of duct-tape and a bit of super glue for good measure. Oh yeah, and blood. They’re sisters.

As infants crooning along with their mother to preteens testing out the musical waters together, Liv and Anita have had a lot of time to develop the gorgeous sound their intertwined voices make. If a summer breeze carrying the scent of lilac and a warm, soothing caress had the ability to sing to you, The Lifers songs are what you would hear. Much like that unpredictable wind, however, the duo’s sound can shift from serene tenderness to an uplifting whirlwind…sometimes in the same breath as their songs explore themes of family, home, and the beauty of nature.

They float into LIVE! On Elgin June 1st in support of their sophomore album Honey Suit, a release that sees those breezy vocals accentuated by softly plucked strings, accordion swells, lush cello and upright bass arrangements that give way to rip-roaring drums, soaring melodies and frenetic strums. It’s their most personal release to date as the sisters touch upon their own family dynamic, a sense of place in their constantly shifting world, mental health and the environment. 

Taking a break from their current tour, Liv and Anita shared more with me for a Q&A: 

Andre Gagne: As both of you turned to music, I imagine growing up must have been a pretty musical household. Can you tell me a bit about that? 

Anita: You’re right! We were surrounded by music even in our mother’s womb. She listened to the Travelling Wilburys, Kate Bush, KD Lang, and the Proclaimers a lot while she was pregnant with us, and we’ve seen home videos of her dancing with us as babies to the Rankin Family. Our parents were also in a local cover band (Barenaked Ladies, Great Big Sea, The Beatles) for most of our childhood, and they would rehearse every Friday night. I remember Liv and I dancing away outside the doorway and singing along to our mom’s harmonies. 

Liv: When we started singing together as preteens, they were so excited and supportive of us. We are so grateful for that!  

Was there a particular moment, would you say, that captivated you both early on to peruse music? 

Liv: There was never really a moment for me, where I felt ‘ok, this is it’. Whenever I pick up a new instrument, collaborate and learn from another musician, write something new – it all makes me feel so whole. I do remember one time, walking home from a night class at Western University, I thought to myself ‘maybe I’ll give this a shot for, say, 2 years after I graduate, and I’ll see how it goes.’ Since then I’ve learned so much about myself as a musician and a self-manager, and I have quickly forgotten about that silly time limit I was going to give myself.  

While some siblings deviate down different paths from one another, you two have continued in a career together. How do you feel that has helped your relationships as both sisters and collaborators? 

Anita: We definitely see a lot more of each other! (Laughs) In some ways it’s made it more difficult because we end up spending so much time on our musical partnership that our ‘sister time’ is strained. It’s a very fine balance we have to strike. But I must say that the feeling of connectedness that we get while playing together is so special, particularly when we sing our deeply personal songs like ‘Sister’ and ‘The Spill’ from Honey Suite. 

What do you feel each of your personalities adds to The Lifers? 

Anita: I owe so much of our momentum as a band to Liv. Liv is so patient and dedicated and when she sets goals, she makes them happen! Because Liv studied business and music in school, her skills have helped us on the management side of things. I’m much more visually minded, and so I’ve been able to take on all of our artwork-related vision and creation (album art, merch and web design, poster making, etc) 

Liv: It’s actually the most complimentary set of skills! I love that we can lift each other up through our work together. We strive for this sort if relationship with everyone we collaborate with, too. 

How would you describe your style and where do you think the roots of it lie? 

Liv: Describing our own sound is probably the hardest part of this whole thing! (Laughs) We’ve settled on calling it an ‘art-folk/rock collective’ which alludes to our roots and intentions. As Anita was saying, our parents’ musical tastes were a big part of our childhood! Once we were old enough to go to music festivals on our own, we were hit with a huge wave of inspiration from artists like Dan Mangan, Sarah Harmer, and Feist. That’s really when we started growing into ourselves as artists. 

Now, Anita has another job as a textile and installation artist (not to mention school) and Liv teaches and has another band with Tragedy Ann. How have you found balancing these multiple lives with your Lifers life? 

Liv: We are lucky to be working with some of the people who are closest to our hearts. It helps to be able to see these people often, and constantly co-supporting each other. We both thrive off of variety, thank goodness! I must admit it can be really hard to find down time. We have to be mindful of balance, and check in with and cover for each other. 

What did collect up and store away from your sessions on Out and In, your first album, that you feel most benefited the recording of album two, Honey Suite? 

Anita: Working on Out and In, we definitely benefited from spending a whole week in one space to record the core the sounds. We recorded that album at our family’s cottage which is a space we feel most comfortable in and where we can be in tune with our true selves. Starting with recording Honey Suite, we knew we needed to be in a very comfortable and homey space, with a place to make healthy meals to fuel our creation, and made sure we take time to check in with each other over a meal and escape our “creation cave” for a little while. 

Can you tell me about the themes you wanted to explore on Honey Suite? 

Liv: Gender equality and environmental activism are very important issues for us personally and as The Lifers. These concerns inevitably weave their way into our words, intertwined with themes of home and anxiety. Sonically, we wanted to express these lyrics through folk, orchestral and electronic instrumentation. This multidimensional textural palette was very new and exciting for us in Honey Suite, which was much more adventurous for us than our intentionally natural and acoustic sounding Out and In. Allowing ourselves to explore and experiment more with Honey Suite was really rewarding. I think we articulated these near and dear thoughts authentically and deeply. 

This is a deeply personal release that also touches upon mental health, seeking a sense of place and, of course, sisterhood. What had you both mining deeper to unearth these songs? 

Anita: Around the time of releasing Out and In, I slipped into a big mental health rut, and I was very out of touch with myself and my relationships were struggling because of it. In some ways, I felt like writing songs about my experience was the only way I could communicate how I was feeling to others. Luckily, the people who love and care about me the most are very tied to the art of songwriting, so this felt like the best way to explain to them what I was going through. And it truly did help so much. 

There is a lot of instrumentation on this album. 12 people performed on Honey Suite! How did you ensure your vision for the sound came across in these recording sessions? 

Liv: Anita and I put a ton of thought and care into choosing each person we wanted to work with for this record. Probably most integral to that was our choice of our production team of JoJo Worthington and David Worthen. These dear friends and creative minds were right with us along the way to help stretch our boundaries of thought and performance, and they captured everybody’s sounds with a unified vision. It was also really important for Anita and I to be willing to allow the songs to transform every time a new person’s thoughts entered the picture. We like to think of all these artists as bees in our musical hive! 

As two who I gather started performing, say, in your kitchen together…what had you wanting to explore such a large band as opposed to, say, a duo? 

Liv: We still perform as a duo quite often – it’s a completely different feeling to strip it down for an intimate, story-centred performance. We do have big ideas for our songs, and we didn’t hold back with this album at all, adding in every sound that float around together in our minds. Even still there is a song on the album which we wanted to keep as a duo arrangement. It’s exhilarating and fulfilling to be able to do both! 

You mentioned JoJo Worthington. You worked closely with her for this release. Can you tell me what that experience was like and what do you feel she brought to your new music? 

Anita: Jojo is such an amazing human to work with! I remember listening to her latest album “Two Lines” (released April 2016) for the first time and thinking, ‘wow, there is so much amazing vision behind this music, and she has pushed and progressed her art so much with this record. She’s doing the things that I want to be doing with my art!’. Then, a few months later when we were thinking about who to ask to co-produce this album with David Worthen, she was a unanimous first choice.   

Jojo and Dave were both such patient people to work with in sessions and they both had a common goal to ensure that the emotional qualities of our performance shone through in each take. Jojo had many amazing visions for these songs from the beginning. She also introduced us to one of our favourite new musical toy – the Critter and Guitari organelle. We played it on lots of songs on the albums, even on one of the most bare songs, “The Spill”. I told her we needed something that sounded like it was crying – and she nailed it! Jojo also really helped us stretch our boundaries with our vocal performance, and encouraged us make some pretty wild sounds with our mouths! You can hear some of that on “Pull Me Under” and “A Trial for the Coming of Snow”. I wish I could talk more about how great Jojo and Dave were as producers, but we’re running out of space! I love them both so much. 

You’ve been doing a lot of moving around either out of the family home for school, back again, these tours. How do you feel all those uprooting and resettling effect you and do you think that weaves its way into your songs? 

Anita: Whether it is moving around year by year to different apartments, or being on tour and arriving in a new city every day, a lack of groundedness has always been a point of struggle for me. I rely heavily on feelings of comfort and stability, and thrive best when I am surrounded by things that make me feel good. When that gets taken away, I feel quite lost. I end up writing about this lack of home or yearning for home quite a lot – I think it also relates to questions I have about what home truly is to us as humans on this earth. Is home a structure, a relationship, or a landscape? These thoughts are addressed in Honey Suite a few times. 

That said, with a new tour underway, what do you most enjoy about traveling together and performing? 

Liv: The new people we have been meeting along the way on this tour are incredibly kind, welcoming and keen to listen to our music. We love sharing in those kinds of experiences! I also love the range of energy and emotion we feel throughout the tour – silly, reflective, exhausted, wired, inspired… it wouldn’t be the same if we weren’t together through all of that. Whenever we perform, we put every ounce of love and feeling into the songs we sing together – it is incredible to be united in that.

Finally, where do you see the next musical progression taking you after Honey Suite? 

Anita: I really see myself picking up a banjo and an old parlour guitar and writing an album inspired by female folk music from the 60s and 70s. I’ve been listening to so much Vashti Bunyan and Karen Dalton lately, and it’s really inspiring me.  Liv and I have both written some silly-cutesy-creepy songs that we want to record just for fun.  Another big goal of mine is to write an album that can feature as many of our female-identifying musical pals as possible – singers and instrumentalists. I think it would be such a fun project to bring all these amazing musicians under one album umbrella and celebrate female collaboration! Our hive just keeps on growing.

For more on The Lifers visit them online at www.thelifersmusic.com, catch them in various venues across Ontario this June including Live! on Elgin in Ottawa on June 1 with Jessica Pearson and the East Wind, June 6 at the Heliconia Hall in Toronto with KASHKA and June 8 at the Talbot St Church in London with Georgian Bay.